Would you ok your son wearing a dress?

Nope. Not all people of one sex need to be attracted to all the people of the other sex. My son does not need to grow into someone I'd be attracted to

Nobody said he did- what an utterly bizarre comment. It looks as if you are constructing tortured false analogies to avoid having to admit, that actually no, you would not date a man in a dress.

I don't know why you think that discussion of adult males isn't allowed or relevant- Kurt Cobain, Harry Styles, Boy George,Marilyn have all been referred to.

My DH wore one of my short sleeve quite high cut floral dresses once and it actually looked lovely on him. He also sports bright and pastel dress shirts for work and going out, with the pink being my favourite. He looks fantastic in these things, and he could go out in bright pink lippy and some stilettos and I'd still fancy him - he probably wouldn't as he prefers comfort, but you get the idea.

Some PPs will probably respond "you're fake woke, it's easy to say this on an online forum, your husband is probably gay or a fetishist" but I know none of those things are true. I also know that it was enforced in school (and I was not in school that long ago at all) that I wear a skirt rather than trousers and even at 10 or so, I knew how arbitrary and irritating that was.

There is so much internalised misogyny on this thread, which I know PPs will deny because it's internalised, but it's true. You're okay with women wearing trousers but not men wearing dresses? Ask yourself why. And don't say this stuff about "it's unnatural / it doesn't look right" because that's solely social conditioning and you wouldn't be saying it if men in dresses was the norm (and this is ignoring the idea that some dresses look unattractive on a lot of women, but we're not calling them "unnatural"). You're not okay with men looking like women because in this society it's considered embarrassing to be a woman, whether you see that or not. There ARE flattering dresses for men - I can compile a list of dress styles I think would look nice on a man if you'd like examples.

It's not degrading to be female or to present as female. If you want "manly men" for yourself - whatever that means - then that's fine because it's a sexual preference, but your sexual preferences should have no effect on the behaviours of your children. You aren't going to date them later on in life, and however they present (even if it's in dresses) they would find someone who liked them for that look. Not everyone finds it unattractive or wants a "manly man".

In a final section of my tangent, I think it's very odd that FWR is usually a place for people to say; "You don't have to be transgender, you can just enjoy being a male in a dress" yet that is the opposite of what I'm reading here. Or is it just that men presenting femininely in any form is unappealing to you?

As a child, he won’t realise the potential ridicule that is likely to await him when he gets to school though. That’s where we step in.

As my previous post explains, my 8 year with SEN couldn’t be expected to understand the implications of going out in his PJ’s, so I make the decision on his behalf to save him getting mocked.

People shouldn’t be placing their angst at those that wouldn’t let their sons wear a dress. We’re trying to protect them because we love them.

I’d go mad if I found out my DC were mocking other children (for whatever reason) and they’d get a stern talking to on how we should be accepting. We are accepting of everyone.

Sadly not all parents think that way and their kids bully other children for anything and everything, without consequences. That’s why I wouldn’t let him wear one.

Why are you so reluctant to consider the situation when little boy in a dress is a teenager or a 30 or 40 year old? The thread is about children- children grow up and in case the thread has been considering men for several pages.

Oh, I'm not, but by that point it's well beyond the control of parents and I think it's incredibly naive to think that someone for whom the desire to wear a dress is particularly strong will never act on it as an adult because mummy said not to when they were small. Either it's a passing phase, in which case allowing them to indulge it as kids does no harm and instills a little less prejudice, or it's not. And if it's not, your adult son is either going to do it anyway and hide it from you, going to decide that actually they're probably a woman really, or view themselves as some sort of deviant with what's likely to be no small amount of shame and self-hatred. I don't see why people are clinging to this arbitrary idea that men can't wear dresses, with the only apparent justification being that they personally wouldn't fancy a man that does.

Don't care what my sons wear as long as they don't start telling me what a woman is or isn't and that I have to rename myself "cis woman".

Prince, Bowie & Harry all gorgeous in "feminine" clothes or not. Similarly KD Lang is gorgeous in a "masculine" trouser suit & white shirt or not.

I found the pencil skirt and high heel bloke a bit creepy. I don't wear those sorts of clothes so I assume the women who do are doing so because it makes them feel sexy? I'm sure there must be other reasons but personally I see them as "sexy clothes" and nothing more. They're hardly practical. But until I can understand a reason why a woman would wear them outside of "feeling sexy" then I naturally assume that bloke was doing it because equally it made him feel sexy. And that's the bit I don't understand and hence... creepy.

I don't think "dress" automatically means something has to be sexy or frilly or pink or sparkly. So it's a tricky one to bring the conversation to a specific type of dress.

It isn't a weird argument. The opening thread was about whether one would let one's son wear a dress. If you're fine with it's a perfectly logical next question to say, OK you're fine with your son wearing a dress would you be equally happy if someone else's grown up son turned up wearing a dress for a date with you?

No, I'm sorry, it's very weird to my mind to suggest your kids should only do things you'd find attractive on a date. 'If you're fine with your son playing laser tag lockins every Saturday, you should be fine with your date doing the same.' 'If you're fine with your son playing Warhammer tournaments at the weekend, you should be fine with your date doing the same.' 'If you're fine with your son dying his hair blue, you should be fine with your date doing the same."

Nope. Not all people of one sex need to be attracted to all the people of the other sex. My son does not need to grow into someone I'd be attracted to. He just needs to grow up to be a happy young man who is comfortable in his own skin and kind to others. I don't think enforcing nonsensical stereotypes will aid in that endeavour.

I fail to see how wearing a dress would make someone a 'creep

You must have missed the Grayson Perry and the bloke in pencil skirts and high heels threads then. Plenty of posters think they are creepy.

Why are you so reluctant to consider the situation when little boy in a dress is a teenager or a 30 or 40 year old? The thread is about children- children grow up and in case the thread has been considering men for several pages.

[quote Savourysenorita]@TableFlowerss very well put. Excellent point well made[/quote]
Thank you 😊

But I think many women might suspect the guy is a creep. And they don't want their child to come off as (or actually be) a creep.

I fail to see how wearing a dress would make someone a 'creep', but regardless, this thread is not about men. It's about children. By the time he's an adult he can don whatever clothes he likes and his mum has no power whatsoever to stop him. This is about children and whether you as a parent send the message that if a boy wears a dress he is not a boy or the message that boys can wear dresses.

I'll answer since there seems to be some coyness. No I wouldn't be fine with it.

@TableFlowerss very well put. Excellent point well made

Why don’t we all just wear PJ’s on a weekend though, to go shopping etc...Because we know if we do, they’ll get some almighty funny looks. Should it matter? Perhaps it shouldn’t but at his young age, I don’t want to throw my boy in to the lions den and potentially (most likely) be ridiculed (he also had SEN so I’m more protective as he can be vulnerable)

If someone is very comfortable with their boy worsening dresses to school it stands to reason that they would feel equally comfortable with a date wearing a dress too? Because why wouldn’t they? If a dress should be neutral for a boy then surely the same principle should be applied to a man wearing a dress?

@DidoLamenting

• "2bazookas Gawd, you must be young; some of us here have already lived through the time when women were often criticised for wearing trousers in public. I had open complaints from employer , other teachers, and even neighbours."

I'm 61- how old are you? I don't remember this being the case.*

Blimey I'm only 54 and was suspended and almost expelled from school for wearing trousers.

Girls weren't allowed to take woodwork or DT we HAD to do Home Economics and sewing!

This was all less than 40 years ago! (Ah bugger that sounds ages ages ago!! I really am old!)

We were not even allowed to wear trousers to the office in the early 80's.

Just because it didn't happen to you, doesn't mean it didn't happen to others!!

We have fought so very hard to get where we are now but it's just slipping away again.

I despair for my grandchildren. :(

why are you OK embarrassing your son in one but if it was your husband you would be aghast /find it funny /be embarrassed/ridicule him

Don't think I'd do/feel any of those things if I came home and found DH in a dress. Of course there are a million nuances and caveats to what that might specifically look like and I don't think I'd have blanket approval. Those men's long T-shirt's that were in fashion in recent years (maybe still are?!).... if I came home on a 30 degree day and found DH sat around in one of those and nothing else then I believe he work technically be "wearing a dress" and I wouldn't give a flying shit. They're designed for men. Chucking a loose fitting dress on on a hot day is bliss.

In the episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets fat so he can work from home, he spends most of the episode in a floral dress. And I don't believe there's any mention of whether it's gender appropriate. So there, I've degraded this entire conversation by referencing a cartoon.

If it's just fashion sense, you are right, who cares.

But I think many women might suspect the guy is a creep. And they don't want their child to come off as (or actually be) a creep.

Actually yes it would bother me if my son was inadvertently presenting himself as gay when he is not old enough to understand or defend himself on more adult concepts.

That's a massive stereotype of the gay community. Not all gay men wear dresses, not all men who wear dresses are gay. Just because you're apparently ignorant of this doesn't mean everyone else is.

I would let a son wear whatever he wanted as long as it was weather appropriate. If he was very young, I might have to warn him that some people, especially other boys, might not be kind about him wearing a dress.

I remember my 3yo dd coming home and remarking that a boy was wearing a pink shirt or had on sparkly nail polish and the message she always got from me is that we live in a wonderful world where boys and girls can wear whatever they want. She herself had only recently adopted the sparkly tutu skirts and pink clothing style, a reaction to her first time school experience, but within a couple more years decided her own style (and that was the last time other than weddings or funerals that she wore dresses and I’ve been frank with her that it has to be dresses only because we can’t find “nice” clothes in her size that aren’t, but when she moves up to the next size range there will be swishy trousers and blouses and all sorts of options that show respect in chosen attire, but don’t require her to wear a skirt)

Specifically, it’s interesting to hear whether those advocating boys wearing dresses at school, would be happy to date the guy described above.

Why though? I wouldn't date a guy who turned up with tattoos, a football supporter t-shirt, tramlines in his hair, big braces on his teeth or a bow-tie.... But does this mean my son shouldn't be allowed to style himself that way if he so chooses? I don't get why, 'Ah, but would you fancy an adult who did that?!' is being used as a gotcha- it doesn't matter. I'm not going to be the one looking to date him and lord knows what the fashions will be in twenty years or whether he'll even be straight. It's bizarre, to my mind, to prevent him dressing how he likes as a child just in case he carries it on into adulthood and some prospective date doesn't fancy him for it. And, to be honest, if it were something he felt the need to do, any prospective partner would need to be OK with that anyway, so the argument is moot.

She’s taking about a man turning up to a date wearing a dress (lipstick and high heels too if you like) and whether it would put his date off.

Specifically, it’s interesting to hear whether those advocating boys wearing dresses at school, would be happy to date the guy described above.

I very much doubt all those that they all would!!!

When we are discussing small children who might reasonably wear a dinosaur costume, I think that is different territory altogether from older children and adults.

For the latter, I think most people understand that there are cultural differences in what is considered masculine and feminine clothing and also that these can change over time. In many societies with limited ability to create complex garments, men and women's clothes are very similar, though they might be decorated differently.

To some extent differences also reflect the differences in the male and female body, it's why many women who wear trousers (which are gender neutral in most of the west) don't wear men's trousers. They don't fit right. You get into a similar problem with men who try and wear women's clothing, it usually fits poorly and may be unflattering to the male body and the clothing. It's been tailored with women's bodies in mind. As for people trying to say that this isn't so, I really hope you aren't the same people who insist it's pretty easy to tell a woman from a man because they are built differently, right down to the skeletal level.

But the question that people are uncomfortable with all round I suspect is whether a man or older boy who is wearing a dress is generally doing so just because he is really just attracted to dresses, or because he is attracted to appearing like a woman, or appearing wearing women's clothing (whether that is a dress or a something else.) And pointing to all the gender benders of the 70s and 80s, or even Kurt Cobain, is not helpful because they were all looking to dress like women, that was the whole point of gender bending. Maybe some were trying to really subvert gender, but mostly I don't really think so. Playing with gender isn't the same as wanting to be rid of it.

The question about the date is really, would you be uncomfortable if your date seemed to want to appear as a woman. Which may be why also wearing make-up that appears as the sort a woman might wear crosses the line - it seems to make it clear that it's not just about the dress but the whole package "woman".

‘Quick follow the ‘in-crowd’ it’s fashionable to be seen as alternative- look at me and my cool parenting style. Can everyone hear me, my child is gender neutral.... alert.... I say.... I’m forcing (ahem encouraging) to be gender neutral because I want to be seen to be doing’